Investigating the Past (2)

The moment I laid eyes on the quest that pathetic loser had handed me, I learned something about myself: when a person gets angry enough, words simply fail them.

What?

Whaaat?

Why I'M unpopular?!

You son of a bitch!

You absolute piece of shit!

You didn't already know that, so you had to ask?!

If it weren't for the Mesugaki Skill, I could have restored my reputation by now! All the countless messes Lucy had made in the past could have been written off as childish folly! Think about my specs! The ability to dominate first place across both academics and combat at the Academy. The absurd Charm stat that turned the face-con fox into my stalker. And on top of all that, the background of being the daughter of a Count family with continent-shaking influence!

If my name just weren't Lucy, I'd be the idol of the Academy by now!

Honestly, even with the name Lucy, it would have been launderable if only the Mesugaki Skill didn't exist! Look at the sheer weight of the connections I have around me!

Arthur, Third Prince of the Soladin Kingdom, commands massive support among the first-years — and he backs me. I'm friends with Joy, the social gravity well around whom all the noble young ladies orbit. And I'm close with Phoebe, who enjoys enormous popularity among everyone from commoners to noble clergy alike.

With people like that standing behind me, imagine the reaction if I just showed the faintest hint of regret for my past misdeeds!

Sure, the people who hate me would go on hating me, but plenty of others would think, the Lady Aln has really changed, hasn't she? And with my abilities being what they are, even those who privately looked down on me would be willing to play nice!

But a wall called the Mesugaki Skill was blocking every single one of those advantages!

I've got a disease that makes it physically impossible to open my mouth without stuffing in at least one of loser, scrub, retard, or trash — so reputation laundering is flat-out impossible!

And in that situation, what?!Why I'm unpopular?!

You knew the answer and poked me with it anyway, didn't you?!

You got butthurt because I compared you to that petty evil god, so you took it out on me — that's what this is, isn't it?!

If you understand the reasons for my unpopularity so damn well, then how about removing this Mesugaki Skill, you pathetic turd!

I huffed and puffed to myself, having completely forgotten that Lady Baines was crying right in front of me with Karl patting her shoulder soothingly, before sucking in a long, deep breath.

Calm down. Let's be calm.

This isn't the first time that worthless cripple has flipped me the bird through a quest title, is it? So why am I getting worked up over it already?

And love him or loathe him, the guy always pays out proper rewards, even when he's grinding my feelings into the dirt.

If I'm going to throw a tantrum, I should at least read the quest contents first. Yes. That's the right call.

My eyes tensed the instant I read the first line, but with superhuman restraint I smothered the rage and kept reading below it.

Then the very next sentence broke me, and I heard my own teeth grinding against each other.

So it WAS a deliberate jab.

It's telling me to stop complaining about being insulted and start thinking about how to actually improve. That's the message here.

You ossified, limp-dicked, crippled bastard!

Does he think I call people pathetic for fun?! It's ALL because of the skill! You shit-eating son of a bitch, AAAARGH!

For him to react this directly, it means he can shrug off me cursing him out, but comparing him to that petty evil god is simply intolerable, huh?!

Okay! Got it!

So THAT'S your berserk button, is it?! Rest assured, I'll be pressing it every chance I get from now on!

And honestly? Some "Chief God" you are.

In Soul Academy the game, you were nothing but background air with zero presence or relevance!

"My lady?"

I had been deep in contemplation of exactly how best to piss off that pathetic excuse for a Chief God when Karl's voice snapped me back to reality. He was watching me with open concern on his face.

"Is something the matter?"

Huh?

"Loser. What crap are you spouting, hm?"

"Your expression was simply terrible, my lady."

Had my anger been leaking through to the outside?

I'd assumed the Mesugaki Skill would mask at least that much, but apparently my fury toward the loser Chief God ran deeper than the filter could cover.

Then I caught sight of Lady Baines, mid-sob, sneaking anxious glances at me — and the heat in my head finally cooled. Ahem. If the girl who'd been bawling her eyes out was nervously checking my mood, my face must have been genuinely murderous.

After telling Karl to escort Lady Baines back, I stayed behind alone, took a seat on a nearby bench, and read through the rest of the quest from top to bottom.

For a quest custom-built to get under my skin, the actual content was surprisingly reasonable.

Investigate the karma of my past, then figure out how to repay it. That's all it's asking, right?

It's genuinely constructive advice, I'll admit. And with a real reward attached, it's not bad at all.

But hold on a second. What's with the "bunny"? And what's with all the giggling in between?

It can't be... right? Tell me it's not the bunny I think it is.

Tell me it's not THAT thing, the one I stuffed into my inventory after the field trip, the one I assumed would never see the light of day again.

Why ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠can't you just say no?! Say no, damn it!

Prove to me that you are NOT a pathetic perverted pedo loser of a Chief God who gets his kicks watching his own Apostle squirm in shame in a bunny girl outfit!

For all my shouting, though, I knew reality all too well. The loser Chief God was absolutely the type to cackle "WACKYA-PAHAK SNRK lmaooo" while watching me writhe in humiliation in bunny ears.

Which meant the failure penalty was almost certainly me being forced back into that bunny suit.

The question was: under what circumstances would I be wearing it?

If it's just putting it on at home while the face-con fox drools over me, that I could live with.

But would that pathetic pervert pedo loser of a Chief God be satisfied with something that tame?

Depending on the terms, I might actually have to wear the bunny girl outfit to school at the Acad—

The instant that thought completed itself, I scrubbed the worst-case scenario out of my skull with both hands and resolved, firmly, to complete this quest no matter what.

So, saddled with the solemn duty of investigating my own karmic debts, the first place I visited was Alsaetin's Tavern.

No matter how I turned it over in my head, no one was better suited to give me a truly objective assessment than that man.

Karl and the people around me would obviously bend over backward to avoid saying anything unflattering, if only out of deference to me.

And if I asked someone who genuinely despised me, like Lady Baines, I'd get nothing back but a deluge of insults soaked in every emotion under the sun.

Alsaetin wasn't perfectly neutral either, granted, but a man who deals in information for a living should at least be capable of an objective opinion.

"You wish me to investigate the various deeds the Young Lady committed in the past?"

Under that reasoning, I'd put the question to him — and Alsaetin's face displayed a degree of bewilderment that was impossible to miss.

Ever since we'd gotten closer lately, the man had grown steadily more candid with his emotional expression, I swear.

That's right.

"Got a problem with that?"

"No, my lady. After all, doesn't one know one's own affairs better than anyone?"

Exactly. Normally, a person knows their own business best.

Except I'm not Lucy herself.

I'm just a poor soul transmigrated into Lucy's body because of some nameless bastard who dreamed up the Mesugaki mode!

How on earth am I supposed to know what Lucy got up to?!

Of course, laying all that out for Alsaetin would only get me committed as a lunatic, so I had a proper excuse prepared.

And why exactly should I remember it?

"Why would I bother remembering the doings of a pack of loser scrubs, hm? They were pathetic garbage, so I simply treated them the way garbage deserves to be treated, ♡"

The hallmark of a true degenerate: never remembering anything she herself has done. Why waste brain capacity on trivia like that?

I declared, with total confidence, the sort of statement that would earn a you shameless little witch from any eavesdropper — and Alsaetin nodded along with an odd look on his face.

"Fair ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠enough, I suppose."

I'd thrown the words out half-expecting to have to argue him into it, so watching him accept them this effortlessly left me with a strangely complicated feeling.

From his perspective, I suppose, I'm simply the kind of person for whom such a statement raises no eyebrows at all.

In any case — you can do it, right?

"Even a below-average idiot like you could manage this much, no?"

"Yes. Shall I say, yes. In truth, there is no need to investigate anything at all. I already know it all."

Alsaetin asked me to wait a moment, stepped out of the room, and returned a short while later with a bundle of documents in hand.

"Records concerning the deeds of the Young Lady Aln. Read them, and the memories should come flooding back, one by one."

Why on earth he'd had all this compiled in advance, I desperately wanted to ask — but it saved me the legwork, so just this once, I'd let it slide.

Taking the documents from Alsaetin, I turned my eyes to the pages.

All right. What sort of catastrophic messes had Lucy actually left behind?

Oh. Shit. O loser Chief God, most high. What in the world is THIS.

What kind of raving lunatic looks a nation's King dead in the face and starts talking about pigs?!

And considering this was the summarized version, there was a very good chance Lucy had done something even worse.

No wonder high society froze me out, you absolute lunatic of a girl!

The first incident alone had already broken my spirit — and yet an entire mountain of further incidents lay waiting below it.

I'm scared. Reading this is genuinely frightening.

But if I didn't read every last entry, the quest wouldn't clear — and then came the bunny suit.

It can't be helped. Being scared doesn't erase things that already happened.

Deep breath. Resolve locked in. I turned my gaze to the litany of incidents recorded below.

Reading through the endless list, one conclusion settled over me with total certainty.

Lucy really had been out of her goddamn mind.

A textbook, clinically pure anger-management disorder: if a person so much as entered her field of vision, she picked a fight first and asked questions later.

Now I understood why the Academy students had scattered like I was a cockroach the moment I appeared. With a lunatic like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this, the correct play is to never make eye contact. Ever.

I would have done exactly the same.

With a track record like this, no amount of Charm stat was going to mean a thing.

Was this fixable? Could any of this possibly be overturned — could this reputation actually be rebuilt?

As the word impossible began creeping stealthily into the back of my mind and my eyes drifted down the page, I stumbled upon yet another staggering entry.

Haaah? What the actual hell.

You're telling me that on top of everything else, she stacked karmic debt on the final boss of the kingdom's storyline?!